Saturday, October 11, 2014

That musical was great...but the movie came first!

For those of you who read my last post
concerning musicals that have been turned into movies, I present to you the
thrilling conclusion: Movies that have been turned into musicals.That’s right, the door swings both ways and
while Broadway’s best have been filling the silver screen, cinematic classics
have been working their way through the boards on Broadway as well. However, unlike the previous post, I’m not going to spend
the pixels to explain to you the history of the screen-to-stage adaptation, but
instead try to answer the question: What kind of movie lends itself to
Broadway.This question is much harder
to answer because, at first glance, there seems to be no one ingredient to be
found in every adaptive Broadway smash.

One common assumption is that a successful movie would make
for a successful musical.This, a very
logical assumption, is quite true in several cases.Indeed many blockbuster movies such as Mary Poppins and Leagally Blonde have earned similar critical and commercial success
on the stage as they did on screen.However, on the whole, my observation shows that it is actually the less
successful movies whose musical adaptations tend to flourish.Low budget films like Little Shop of
Horrors and Newsies have found incredible success on stage whereas the
adaptations of many of their more critically acclaimed counterparts such as Ghost and Big Fish fizzled.

Another logical assumption is that musical movies that are
prime candidates for theater adaptations.If a movie already has a winning soundtrack, then why wouldn’t it be
able to seamlessly transition onto the stage?This theory seems to me to have been proven true by Academy Award
winning scores such as those of The Lion King and Aladdin that went on to become
equally successful on the Great White Way. Of course, I often find that these musical
masterpieces prove most effective when they’re complemented with
re-orchestrations and original songs.In
the case of the previous two shows, songs that never appeared in the movie
incarnations, such as The Lion King’s “Endless Night” and Aladdin’s “Proud of Your
Boy”, serve as some of the stage version’s strongest moments.

So is there one particular genre (other than musicals) that
make a good Broadway transfer?Well,
Broadway certainly accepts all types.Documentaries (Hands on a Hard Body), Horror Movies (Carrie), and Action
films (Rocky) have all found homes on the Broadway stage.However, despite all of this diversity, there
are a few genres that seem to be more prevalent:

Romance movies are a popular choice, as is proven by films
such as Once and The Bridges of Madison County that became successful
musicals in the past several years.I
expect that this is largely because the love song has for years been one of
Broadway’s most beloved tools, and what better showcase for a beautiful duet
than a beautiful love story?

Broadway has also welcomed several shows based off of laugh
out loud comedies such as Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein and Monty Python
and the Holy Grail.This brand of
entertainment has become so popular in theater because the larger-than-life
characters in such movies seamlessly transfer to the stage and the audience
comes to the theater fully prepared to suspend their disbelief (often a
necessity for enjoying stage shows).

But by far, the most common movie genre that I’ve seen find
success on the Great White Way is family friendly entertainment.This is somewhat ironic because I would call
the majority of successful Broadway musicals in general to be “PG-13 at best,”
but apparently that rule doesn’t hold true to adaptations.Whether you look to holiday classics like A
Christmas Story and Elf, animated masterpieces like Beauty and the Beast
and Shrek, or childhood favorites such as Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Matilda, PG-rated movies have quite a successful reputation on New
York Stages.While I can’t say with any
degree of certainty why children’s movies seem to be such successful choices
when it comes to stage adaptations, I expect a large portion of it is that
parents don’t necessarily want to take a chance on anything new when they take
their child to the theater. If there’s a
movie that the kids already know and trust, then why not see those characters
come to life in a fun, safe environment?

Now that I think about it, there’s one more component that a
surprising number of successful screen-to-stage adaptations seem to share: Walt
Disney.From Beauty and the Beast to Aladdin and everything in between, it seems Disney Theatrical Productions can
do no wrong in their adaptations.With a
record like there’s, it’s no wonder that they have several more shows –
including The Jungle Book and The Hunchback of Notre Dame –already in
development.

So while any and all types of movies can be made into
musical, if you want to have the best chance of success, I suggest choose an
obscure children’s’ movie that already has a great soundtrack, and if it
happened to be written by Disney, then that wouldn’t hurt.